Cryptocurrency news: Blockchain like bitcoin, Ripple ‘worth more than US economy by 2020’

CRYPTOCURRENCIES like bitcoin, Ethereum, Litecoin and Ripple, will be worth $20 TRILLION in just two years time, more than the ENTIRE American economy, a US senator has told the Senate Banking Committee.

PUBLISHED: 00:01, Wed, Feb 7, 2018
| UPDATED: 17:16, Wed, Feb 7, 2018

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Democrat Sen. Mark Warner said the Blockchain boom could be even bigger than mobile phones

Democrat Sen. Mark Warner said if financial trends continued the combined market value of the leading crypto-currencies – which is also roughly equivalent to the USA’s national debt.

At a Senate hearing on cryprocurrencies yesterday the Senator for Virginia, who made his fortune in the 1980s investing in cellphone technology, said the Blockchain boom could be even bigger than mobile phones.

He said: “I think we may be on top of something that’s transformational, and I don’t think you can separate the underlying, distributed-ledger Blockchain from some of these crypto assets.

“If we had the same rate of increase the next two years that we’ve had the last couple of years, we’re talking now a couple hundred billion, we’d be at north of 20 trillion dollars caught up in this area by 2020.

Although largely positive on the future for Blockchain technologies like bitcoin he was concerned that bitcoin futures may have been given the green light too early and added: “I’m just worried that we need a much more coordinated effort because I think the potential writ large amongst crypto assets and the underlying Blockchain could be as transformational as wireless was years ago.

“I think we are going to need a much more coordinated effort.”

The Senate meeting was told that market regulators were behind the curve when it came to both regulation and security of cryptos.

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Testifying before the Senate Banking Committee, the heads of the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said they needed extended powers to tackle the new crypto challenges.

SEC Chairman Jay Clayton said: “We may be back with our friends from Treasury and the Federal Reserve and ask for additional legislation.

“We should all come together, the federal banking regulators, CFTC, the SEC — there are states involved as well — and have a coordinated plan for dealing with virtual currency trading markets.”